Wednesday, April 27, 2011

While we wait to learn more about the future of 35 Cooper Square, this is a good time to stop and note how vastly different this stretch of the neighborhood on the Bowery, Cooper Square and Astor Place ... from East Third Street up to East Ninth Street will look in, say, three years... Here's a recap of what's coming soon...

This summer, work is expected to start at the soon-to-be-demolished Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art building here...

As The Wall Street Journalreported , Edward Minskoff plans to build "a 430,000-square-foot tower on a site overlooking Astor Place ... Just outside the trendy East Village, it's an unorthodox location for an office building. Most of the city's modern office space is in Midtown and the Financial District."

According to the Minskoff Equities website, the 13-story mixed-use office, education and retail building is planned for Spring 2013.

Moving south...The city unveiled plans in January to dramatically reconfigure streets, parks and traffic islands around Astor Place and Cooper Union...

Here are a few images on what the space will look like...

There's a lot happening here, much of it positive. You can read coverage at Curbed ... BoweryBoogie ... The Observer has a slide show here ... The Architects Newspaper...
(The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has an issue with eliminating parts of Astor Place and Stuyvesant Street...)

And then there's 35 Cooper Square at Sixth Street.

Arun Bhatia hasn't made plans for the space here public. However, the developer specializes in dorms and luxury condos. So that's a safe bet.

So... what does all this mean? We can speculate all we want... but likely an increase in rents... which may drive out the little shops along St. Mark's Place...

... to make way for the kind of businesses catering to a new office building. So maybe a Pret A Manger, Subway, Bread Factory and a Ranch 1 for office workers ... We hope we're wrong about the possible domino effect of all the new high-end housing, hotel and office building. Perhaps this is a good time to appreciate what's still here.

Like any other tourist attraction, St. Mark's Place is a mere knock-off of its former self, but the area has always been a residential community. Clearly, city planners, if there are such folks, have decided that this is no longer to be the case. I just wish they would have had the balls to tell those of us who live here that it's over.

The current CU building is god-awful ugly, but the proposed new one has been bothering me. I was thinking it looked like a garden shed, but now I know what it reminds me of - the Jewish Museum in Berlin:

cooper union went from a local free college to a free-market business. they took a page from nyu as are all the other colleges. fifth avenue is now almost all college buildings.cooper union is getting what they wanted, but not exactly. they wanted an outdoor space for their students with tables and umbrellas, etc. unfortunately they will have to share it. it will be another "public space". just what we need. that ugly st. marks building has some historic architectural value, there are not too many more built like that in the city. not to mention that it is on city owned land but and cooper union pays no taxes on it, but will charge exorbitant commercial rents for their new offices. certainly the nature of the neighborhood is changing at too rapid a pace (are we living in another future shock?) with ugly hotels and gourmet stores replacing everything.

...and packs of zombies with their mouths glued to a cellphone clenched in hand with the elbow sticking out, their shoulders hunched and eyes glazed and unfocused, they stumble along on the sidewalk to the next purchased experience. They want to provide more authentic purchased experiences.

When I think of St Marx I think of tchotchke stands, tattoo's, piercing, bongs, excuse me--water pipes. I think of dollar pizza slices and the various lifeforms that they attract. For me the only useful things around there are the Ramen Setagaya, the St Marx market and the Chipotle. Occasionally a sandwich at the Baogette. It's a very weird street nowadays is what I'm trying to say.

I love the sock man he's such a misery. I buy all my socks there. They have a great selection. There's this woman in there now who's very sweet.

I love the teenagers and all of the crap on that strip. Nice and gritty.

Cooper Union is truly classist. Their students will receive a free education at the expense of our community being gentrified. As if we hadn't had enough. CB3 opposed this one, hard to believe. It's CB2 that is in favor of this redevelopment.

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